Hello Friend,
It’s a common human experience, much as high achievers might wish to deny it: Some days are much rougher than most as far as remaining optimistic, productive and at peace. The human condition is such that we are in constant flux with incoming stimuli and internal emotional, physical, mental, psychological and spiritual states of being. Staying in an optimal and ‘non-stuck’ state requires focused intention and attention at times…and even then, it is still a challenge.
Being stuck (basically not in a happily productive and peaceful space) can look and feel like moodiness, anxiety, numbness, procrastination, frustration, worry, despondency and even depression. If you are “stuck” for more than a couple of days and it happens regularly, you may need to meet with a counselor to discuss how to change this state and get to the cause.
When I sink to any state of pessimism or any other fear based emotional state there is usually some combination of these three factors at play:
- Being out of Love and gratitude (not accepting life as it exists in the present moment)
- The running of an old script (stuck in the past)
- Worry (jumping to the future in doubt)
Earlier this year I wrote an article on the Nine Ingredients of Love and outlined the traits and behaviors we would live if being loving was our goal. Being patient, kind, generous, humble, courteous, unselfish, good-tempered, guileless and sincere represent the whole of love. Meaning, any piece (or even having several parts) minus any one piece would not result in love at its highest and best: We would be loving (our self, God or another being) without our whole heart, mind and body.
So, if any one (of these nine ingredients) is missing from your present and regular state, getting stuck on a regular basis is very likely…especially if you are unaware of what is missing. The tips below will help to get you unstuck and keep you from returning to that undesirable state, if you practice them daily.
Creating habits of these activities and of the nine ingredients of love – being patient, kind, generous, humble, courteous, unselfish, good-tempered, guileless and sincere, will add such a tremendous amount of joy, optimism, productivity and peace to your life, you will hardly ever experience being stuck again. And if you do, you will be there for a very short period of time.
Being ‘out of love’ keeps us out of gratitude. How can you be grateful for any small or even large blessing if you are in the midst of a negative state? Gratitude is a manifestation of love and with just a glimmer or flicker of it, true and deep gratitude, that is, the flame of love can be ignited.
The running of an old script: We all have them; words and phrases that may or may not apply at present. We run scripts over and over again. Like a vinyl record album (of the “olden” days) with grooves in them, our mind/memory is grooved with habitual thoughts and emotions running over and over again with or without our permission. Even when habits change and awareness comes into play, we sometimes revert to old scripts without even thinking about it. If we’ve had a habit of responding to certain things in a particular way, for a long time, responding differently will require continued awareness.
Worry: When we worry we are agreeing to fearfully, in thought and emotion, jump into the future. When we do that we negate the present moment. We are essentially saying the present moment is not so important; it’s not really possible to impact the situation at hand or more importantly, our state of mind if we were to remain completely present. We’re saying, NOW doesn’t matter and we “really” need to mentally and emotionally dwell on our concerns for what might happen in the future. We do all of this knowing full well that nothing will be resolved or improved with worry! It is a hard habit to break. Though we may know it doesn’t help intellectually, emotionally avoiding the impotence of worry is a huge challenge for many people.
The best way to replace worry is by creating a powerful new habit that will help you to be productive and at peace. It’s always best when trying to stop a bad habit to focus on actually DOING something positive instead. This way you are focusing on the positive new habit and not on the ineffective old one. So for instance creating a habit of patience (one of the 9 ingredients of love) will help you to not only avoid worry but it will also help you to be more loving.
You can become more patient by first committing to the process. If you are committed, fully, and you begin to identify yourself as a patient person in your thoughts, emotions and actions, it will come. When worry hits, say “No!” Have an affirmation prepared to say out loud; like, “I DO NOT worry because I am a patient person.” And instead of spending the few minutes or hours you might have spent on worrying, you can have a plan in place and ready to do something else – like read, workout, bake, write, clean, garden…whatever is a positive and uplifting way to spend your time. Then, stick to you plan!
Here are some tips for dealing with these three causes of getting stuck:
- Forgive yourself for being stuck and for any work left undone…
- Grow your gratitude muscle by beginning a gratitude journal
- Praise God you are alive and in your right mind
- Change your physiology – sing, dance, jog or work out
- Find something each hour to be grateful for – do this for a few days each week
- Be still, breathe deeply 7x and be in this present moment
- Over a few days, stretch that awareness of being ‘present’ to 60 seconds, then practice finding this space of presence at least once per hour for 5 hours straight – do every day for 21 days
- Imagine the path of your breath through your body
- Whatever exists at present is WHAT IT IS: Practice saying “I accept what is in this moment” BEFORE going into fix-it mode for the next moment of life
- Think of a few ways things can be worse and be grateful it isn’t
- Do a random act of kindness, just because…
- Sit comfortably and imagine yourself unstuck – what are you doing?
- Choose a project you have procrastinated on and do one small piece of it – something that takes no more than 10 minutes
- Become aware of what you repeatedly say to yourself or to others
- Assess whether those scripts work for you and replace them if they don’t
- Do a 21-day program to replace the ineffective script with more powerful self-talk (Free program to left)
- Commit to x number of hours and/or days to NOT WORRYING – wear a rubber band and each time you stray, snap it
- Catch yourself when you start and become still – breathe deeply and pray and/or meditate
- Give yourself 10 minutes per day as your “approved worry time and zone.”
A final thought to ponder: Sometimes getting stuck could be a way of being still…so be careful to not be too hard on yourself. If you are constantly doing and running around with a massive work-load, “stuck” becomes a matter of being still, and getting comfortable with that is crucial for your continued health and productivity. Get to know the difference between “stuck” and the need to be “still.”
Wishing you an abundance of peace, love and joy,
~♥~
